Summary
This article analyzes whether body-based activities can help learners deepen their understanding of angles and angle measurements. Smith, King, and Hoyte think the body plays an important role in connecting the visual, abstract representations of angles with physical movements. In their empirical study, they worked with 20 grade 3 and 4 students consisting of 9 boys and 11 girls. The researchers used a Kinect for Windows program to design a motion-controlled activity for the students to represent angles with their arms and arm movements which determined one of the 4 pre-defined colors on the screen based on the size of an angle formed. The screen showed both static and dynamic representations of angles formed by the students' arms as they were prompted to position and vary the angles. An on-screen protractor was used to measure angles in degrees for the students to make conjectures about how the screen color changed with the angle size. The results revealed that most of the students achieved higher scores from the pre-test to the post-test. In addition, one of the two interviewed students connected his daily life experiences with body-based representations of angles.
Reflections
Using one's body to learn math concepts certainly has some benefits. Probably, people interested in performing arts and physical education enjoy learning anything such as math through their body movements and senses. For example, once in a while, I have students who have piano-playing skills and connect them with related math concepts. Usually, I notice that especially in curve sketching, they use their fingers to form certain shapes that represent the prominent parts of a graph, allowing them to visualize it more easily. Then, they draw it out on paper.
On the other hand, even if body-based activities have been shown in this study to be helpful in increasing young children's sense of angle concepts, this result may not guarantee their future success in learning geometry. Over the years, I have noticed that in Pre-Calculus 12, many students have a lot of trouble visualizing the size of angles in radian measures even when they can convert between degrees and radians very easily by hand. To deal with this difficulty, they generally need to switch angles from radians to degrees. This makes me wonder if the body-based approach can improve their visualization of angles in radians.
Kevin, you've pointed out an important issue related to body-based approach to visualizing mathematical ideas and concepts. After all, I remember learning to add and subtract using my fingers and toes (sometimes, I still go back to this practice even today). This method was deemed unfit very soon. I guess, this approach might be useful during the early years. But, very quickly, we might want to grow out of this approach as this might be viewed as "incompetent" in society.
ReplyDeleteThe body-based approach can and should definitely be used, in my opinion, when teaching. Murugan, you mention that body-based learning may be more useful in the early years. It is definitely true that it is used more often in the early years, especially with counting. We often learn to count with our fingers as it is a physical representation that we are very familiar with. I notice that as students get older, their body-based strategies are not as efficient. For example, using your fingers to add 3-digit numbers might not be very effective.
ReplyDeleteThat said, body-based learning can still be affective in the intermediate grades. I have noticed that many students have a poor conception of distance. It is often beneficial to refer to the body's limbs and how they relate to different measurements. An example of this could be that the width of a fingernail is measured in mm, while the length of the finger might be measured in cm, and the length of the entire body may be measure in feet or meters. Sometimes performing physical activity while learning new concepts can help by stimulating blood flow. I also remember a French teacher in high school who taught all of his students how to conjugate verbs by memorizing associated body movements. I wasn't in his class and yet I remember other students practicing the movements and still know them today.